Show and tell: My Guard regiment and friends

At many points in collecting an army you will always get them all out and set down on a table to admire the growing forces. I Remember my guard army of old...

Ah Second edition... back when it was different squads and metal models, god I loved it back then, a few leman Russes, squads of all the army regiment types and chimeras, but the models of now days blows them away in my opinion. I love the unified armies you can do and with the look of Cadians I knew when coming back to the hobby I was going to be hooked.

Originally I’d planned guard as my main army for 5^th edition (Before their new edition book came out, I'd came back just before 5^th came out but learnt of its release), so I ordered up 3x fourth edition battle forces, the ones with the Russes and grinned as I began painting my fluffy guard force.

But as expected this never goes according to plan... my love for codex marines kicked in and I bought Assault on black reach and a battle force, then kept collecting... my poor guard sitting unloved... although once the new guard codex came out I bought 2 of the new battle forces and took a quick break from the marines to paint up my themed force.

As you can see, it’s a bit of a mix on what I had, but it was meant to be my fun and themed force, with a few Russes, 5 chimeras for the mechanised aspect, missile launcher heavy weapon teams (What was I thinking) and nice platoon squads with some grenade launchers and flamers with Harker as my only veteran squad. I even bought a custom chimera to kit bash as the command tank for my Company Command Squad, and the beginning of the legends of ‘White beard’ were born.

As always with my personality it wouldn’t last. I should have known when saying to myself ''Its my side army for fun just...'' and over various breaks in painting my marines I found myself developing the guard army more and more. Some Vendettas here, some medusas there, oh the new Demolisher kit is out? I’ll get a few of them.

This continued with more Guard being bought as presents, and includes my then fiancé treating me to some tanks and a Baneblade in the Games Workshop in Amsterdam alongside some Apoc books...all through guilt i'm sure, but she probably thought she was being kind getting me them, little did she know it would reignite my spark of love for guard models even more than before...

Now two years later (First army picture was taken on the 29/09/2009) I set out the army over the weekend (10/12/2011) to see how it had grown...

...wow had it grown.  

I give you, the Solar 401st with supporting elements from other forces.

And now the pictures to help break up the forces...



Left to Right: Straken, Whitebeard, Al'Rahem, advisors and banner in back.



Catachan 909th, my platoon squads usually, with mainly artillery support and flyers 

Cadian 390th, small force added after being saved in combat.  

Psyker squads attached to the unit after sucessiful defensive action of their transports

Valhallans who signed on to the regiment after most of their company is wiped out

Mordian mechanised force added due to good bartering of White beard



Drop troops (SST models) employed by regiment for rear action duty



Tallaran Armoured 123 Emperor's Fist

The last chancers eager to work with such a risky regiment.

I'll leave this here for now, with the thread beginning to become picture heavy I'll post up the pictures of the Solar themselves in the next article.